The Big Picture

Practical effects and real locations are the name of the game in “Constellation,” emphasizing the realistic feel of the show.
The actresses playing Jo’s daughter Alice are unsung heroes, showing maturity and professionalism beyond their years in intense scenes.
Stunt teams and special effects supervisors were pivotal in bringing the challenging zero-gravity, extreme environment scenes to life.

If you’re looking for your next sci-fi fix, Apple TV+ is monopolizing the genre with their high-quality series. The latest to hit the streamer is Peter Harness’ psychological thriller, Constellation. Starring Noomi Rapace (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), the show takes viewers to the far reaches of the International Space Station and across breathtaking filming locations like the icy Northern Finland and the deserts of Morocco. To celebrate the series’ official launch, we teamed up with Apple TV+ for a special early screening of Episode 1, “The Wounded Angel,” where Collider’s Steve Weintraub had the opportunity to host an exclusive Q&A with Rapace and Michelle MacLaren (Breaking Bad), executive producer and the director of Episodes 1 and 2.

Constellation stars Rapace as Jo, an astronaut who returns to Earth after a disaster in space only to discover that key pieces of her life seem to be missing. The action-packed space adventure is an exploration of the dark edges of human psychology, and one woman’s desperate quest to expose the truth about the hidden history of space travel and recover all that she has lost.

During the Q&A, which you can watch in the video above or read in the transcript below, Rapace and MacLaren share their experiences working with Apple TV+ and how the streamer keeps serving up hit shows like Foundation, Silo, and more. The duo discusses how they shaped Constellation’s eight episodes in the edit, pulling back on early reveals, and working with a real-life astronaut, Scott Kelly, to ensure the show kept its grounded elements rooted in authenticity. They talk about filming in extreme conditions, from the nearly life-size replica of the ISS to the Arctic in Northern Finland and the heat of Morocco, to doing as much as they could practically, working with top-secret new drones like the Skynamic, and working with the stellar cast, including the twins and Jonathan Banks (Breaking Bad).

Constellation Jo returns to Earth after a disaster in space and discovers that there are missing pieces in her life, so she sets out to expose the truth about the hidden secrets of space travel and recover what she has lost.Release Date February 21, 2024 Main Genre Sci-Fi Seasons 1

COLLIDER: I like throwing a few curveballs at the beginning of every Q&A. Before we get into why you guys are here, if someone has actually never seen anything you’ve directed or anything you’ve been in, what is the first thing you’d like them watching and why?

NOOMI RAPACE: I would say Lamb because that was me going back to my roots, reconnecting with myself and where it all started.

MICHELLE MACLAREN: I would probably say Breaking Bad.

RAPACE: I agree.

MACLAREN: It kind of changed my life.

Image by Jefferson Chacon

What is the most nervous you’ve been the night before the first day of filming something?

MACLAREN: I’m nervous every time. I call it healthy nerves, and I hope I always have them. So, I’m always a little bit scared.

RAPACE: Same. It just kind of feels like I know less and less the more I work. [Laughs] I used to be more cocky and just block it out, I guess. But maybe Prometheus. The first day we were shooting in London, in studio, and I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t sleep, like, not even a minute, and I was, like, wide awake just waiting for my pickup.

I’ve heard that from a lot of actors, especially the first few days because the truth is, like two or three days in you could be replaced. You really don’t know. I mean, it’s happened, like Eric Stolz in Back to the Future.

RAPACE: Yeah, it’s true. God, I haven’t even thought about that. You shouldn’t have told me.

[Laughs] Very sorry.

1:48 Related The Real Reason Eric Stoltz Wasn’t Marty McFly in ‘Back to the Future’ While it may be impossible to imagine the iconic film without Michael J. Fox, let’s entertain the notion for a moment.

For both of you, what was it about this material that said, “I need to be involved with this?”

RAPACE: Oh, wow. I would say it was a combination for me. It was scripts; beautifully crazy, good, written by Peter Harness, Apple TV+. I’ve been following the stuff they’ve been doing and the quality and the level it’s on, and Michelle MacLaren, the package of that and the character Jo, it was just instant love for me.

MACLAREN: Thank you. For me, the scripts. I read the scripts and I thought, “Oh, these are fantastic, challenging, exciting.” I fell in love with the relationship between Jo and her daughter, and I love that at the root of this it’s about a mother and daughter, and a mother fighting to get back to her daughter in very extreme circumstances. I had never done space before, and I love to take on things that are a challenge, and this was a gigantic challenge.

Apple TV makes my favorite sci-fi of any channel, any streamer. What is going on over there that has caused this amazing sci-fi to be produced at one place?

MACLAREN: I mean, I’m not that inside there. I think Zack [Van Amburg] and Jamie [Erlicht] have great taste. The thing I love is this is my third show with Apple TV+, and they hire creatives and they let us be creative. It’s really lovely to be in a place that allows us to be imaginative and to execute it in a very big, scopey manner, and that’s exciting. They have incredible filmmakers and unbelievable talent working for them, and so it’s an exciting place to be.

Noomi Rapace’s ‘Constellation’ Role Was Written for Her
Image via Apple TV+

What can you say about the first season of this show without spoiling things?

RAPACE: Well, I mean, when we were shooting there were days when I felt quite confused. My character goes through a lot, and I kind of allowed myself to really swim in that uncertainty and stay there and not try to be ahead of the character. But it’s sort of like looking at yourself in a broken mirror and just discovering new things constantly, so I would say that it is about finding your truth. For Jo, she’s an astronaut, she’s been training extremely hard, they’re not supposed to be emotional, they’re rational, they look at proof, evidence, and then your entire body and your gut feeling and instincts are telling you something completely different. So that internal battle, that’s kind of the journey I’m going on.

MACLAREN: And she questions herself, whether it’s her sanity or whether something strange is really happening.

How much did Peter know ultimately where this thing is going? Because this is like a high-concept show. Noomi, was it pitched to you as, “I have like a three-season plan,” or, “This is the thing I’m thinking about?”

RAPACE: Peter is an amazing person, and sometimes when I’m asking him, “Is it this?” He’s like, “Could be.” I was like, “Okay, but is it?” He was like, “Mmm.” [Laughs] So, I do think he knows. He has an idea of where it goes, but he was also allowing us to… He gave Jo to me, and he was like, “Jo is yours now.” He’s a great collaborator.

MACLAREN: I think Peter wrote this for you. I mean, there was nobody else we had in mind to play Jo. I don’t know what we would have done if you had said no.

RAPACE: No, me neither. [Laughs] No, I would have hunted the person down. But it was a bit creepy, actually, when I did read it. It just felt like Peter knew too much about me, and it felt like he’s been looking into my life through some weird lens and just kind of put it in there.

I’ve seen the first three episodes, and I think if you rewatched the first episode, you will pick up things that you didn’t notice on the first viewing, that it requires great writing, great directing and knowing ultimately where you’re going. I want to talk about it but not talk about it.

MACLAREN: So Peter had written all eight episodes before we started shooting. He was still working on number eight while we were in it because things evolve, but we cross-boarded the show, and without giving too much away, the episodes are very intertwined, so I worked very closely with the other directors. There’s certain things we set up in Episodes 1 and 2 that you think are one thing and will pay off as something else later. I know I’m speaking in riddles, but I also think that it’s possible that you might finish Episode 8, hopefully you love it and your mind is a little bit more open and curious, and you go back to it and watch Episode 1 and notice things you didn’t notice the first time around. There’s a lot of Easter eggs.

For both of you, what do you think fans are going to say when they finish Episode 8? Would they want Season 2 immediately or would they be like, “I need to re-watch this right now?”

RAPACE: I hope they wanna rewatch it and want Season 2.

MACLAREN: Well, without giving anything away, hopefully they go, “Wow!”

RAPACE: Or like, “Oh, fuck!”

MACLAREN: Yeah, hopefully you watch it again and what Seasons 2 and 3 and 4.

The ‘Constellation’ Crew Built a Life-Size Replica of the ISS
Image via Apple TV+

It looks like a movie. You built that space station and I believe you built it in the sound stage that Fritz Lang did in Metropolis back in the ‘20s. Talk a little bit about being in a sound stage with that much history and building something of that scale for a TV show and on a TV show budget.

MACLAREN: That was incredible. When I first walked into the stage, it was the biggest stage I’d ever seen — it’s an effects stage — it was gigantic, and it was empty, and I thought, “Oh, wow. Are we gonna fill this?” And it wasn’t enough room. We had to go into another stage. Andy Nicholson, our production designer, built a life-size replica of the ISS. Not the entire ISS, but huge pieces of it — we had the American section, we had the Russian section. Martin Goeres, our special effects and stunt coordinator, built rigs on the ceiling of the stage so we could run cables down, and the actors hung from wires and they could go backwards and forwards and sideways. The set was very accurate, and the ISS was not meant for people to walk on, it’s for them to float in, so it is not very practical for filming. So what we had to do was take it out in sections, and when we needed to put the camera or people on the floor, we had to bring in platforms on the floor, and we wanted it to feel very claustrophobic and real. We would take out the ceiling, when the actors were flying, we would take out sections to bring cameras and lights in, but we’d try to keep the set as complete as possible, which is less expensive for visual effects, but also I think it puts you guys in a place.

RAPACE: Yeah, it was not easy. And Michelle is a very stubborn and passionate director, so she did not settle for, like, 95% good. She was like, “It needs to be perfect.” So, the floating was definitely the hardest part. Like, I was training for two months before, just working up my core and my balance, my body control, and then it was like a huge team effort. We had an amazing crew. Me floating is probably 10 people being hyper concentrated on my every move and my shift in weight, and one person giving a signal to someone else who was sitting with a remote control, and the camera being perfectly timed. It was very intense.

MACLAREN: I’ll just add to that, that it wasn’t just wires. We also had other rigs. Noomi or the other astronauts could be sitting on a rolling chair or lying on their stomach on a rolling table. And one of the hardest things was miming, and Numi did a lot of those close-ups and she was actually miming. So while they’re doing all this and trying to remember that they’re floating, they’re acting.

RAPACE: It was like standing in planks and you’re holding your whole body like this, and it’s supposed to be, like, floaty and effortless. And Michelle was always like, “One more, one more, one more.” And I was, like, dripping.

MACLAREN: Yeah, Noomi and I got very close in making this, too, especially when we were in the Soyuz. It was very, very tight in there, and the only way for us to communicate was putting an earpiece in Noomi’s ear, and then I was talking to her outside of the Soyuz.

RAPACE: I could not get in, I could not get out. I was stuck, and I had God in my ear, just following blindly what she said.

‘Constellation’ Took the Crew From the Arctic to Morocco

When you saw the shooting schedule, what day did you have circled in terms of, “Oh my god, I can’t wait to film this,” and which day did you have circled in terms of, “How are we gonna film this?”

MACLAREN: We started with the cabin, which was very emotional, and that was our first week.

RAPACE: Yeah, we started it in a different place where my character is in a very specific state. It was brutal to jump right in there, but we also just ripped a band-aid straight away, and it’s like there’s no room to think or to consider. I was so nervous, I was scared, and it was like after day one, I was like, “Okay, I’m in.”

MACLAREN: It actually worked for the scenes that we were shooting. When you watch Episode 2, keep in mind that the opening scene in the cabin was shot in the first week of production. I think it worked for everybody, especially the girls, the twins who both played Alice. They were really nervous, but it worked. They were amazing, absolutely fantastic, awesome, awesome, hard working, amazing actors. But I think that worked. I think it helped.

But to answer your question, when I looked at the schedule, I just looked at the Zero-G stuff and said, “Not enough time. There’s not enough time.” There’s never enough time to shoot Zero-G. That’s just not possible. But we also had this massively huge, ambitious schedule location-wise. We actually shot the exterior of the cabin and all the snow stuff you see in the Arctic, in Northern Finland. We built the cabin in the summer. We went and found the property, and the lake was not solid. We picked the location and the crew built the cabin in the summer, and then we waited for the lake to freeze over and for the snow to come, and then we shot that in the winter. During the summer, we shot the ISS and we went to Morocco for Kazakhstan. I have to say, that was one of my favorite things that I was looking forward to was Morocco because I love shooting in Morocco, but also because of what happens there, and I can’t tell you.

RAPACE: It was maybe not my favorite place to shoot because I was, like, stuck in the space suit and in a wig and space helmet. It was extremely hot. We were shooting up on a hill, 360, and it was rough. It was tough.

MACLAREN: This show was physically demanding for Noomi, and emotionally demanding in every way. She is a force of nature. I mean, she’s incredible. You were an animal.

RAPACE: [Laughs] A honey badger.

MACLAREN: You hit it all out of the park.

I was gonna say, you’re in an awful lot of scenes, so how excited were you when you saw Jonathan Banks, without you, doing stuff?

RAPACE: Actually, sometimes I stayed to just watch him work. He’s incredible, and it’s just pure masterclass watching him. It’s a gift to be working with him and to be around him, and he’s an incredible human as well.

Image via Apple TV+

I’m fascinated by the editing process, so how did your episodes possibly change in ways you didn’t expect? I’m not sure if as an executive producer you can talk about the show itself once you had all eight episodes because? Sometimes stuff happens and you realize, “This isn’t working. We’ve got to redo this or that.”

MACLAREN: I can’t talk too much about that, but I can tell you that we actually, in the first cut of Episode 1, we revealed a lot more, we were more obvious about certain things than we ended up being. We looked at it and we thought, “Audiences are so sophisticated, they’re so smart. We want them to be part of trying to figure this out. We want them to be invested in this journey.” So we pulled way back on that. That was one of the things we did.

There was a scene that I shot on a cruise ship for Episode 2, and we looked at it, and Peter and I were like, “You know what? That works better in the story in Episode 3.” So sometimes that happens. I mean, these scripts are very tight but there’s an evolution. I would say that the biggest thing that we played around with in post is how much we reveal and how much we don’t reveal, and when we do it.

Did you guys do any sort of friends and family screenings and learn from those, or was it more just you guys in the editing room?

MACLAREN: I’ll just say my brother’s here tonight and he could probably recite this. Thank you, Doug. [Laughs] So, yes, I do drag in close people to the editing room. I did have some really wonderfully talented friends that came in and gave me some really good advice, and it was really helpful.

Did the show end up with a lot of deleted scenes or no?

RAPACE: No. I actually think everything is kind of in there. Weird.

MACLAREN: There’s some stuff on the floor. We’ve tightened some stuff up.

RAPACE: I mean, it’s really a testimony to Peter Harness’ writing. A lot of times when you come in, I want to remove a lot of dialogue. I think most things are over-said. They kind of don’t think that the audience will understand and it’s over-explaining. The audience, you all know, you know? I kind of wanna say less. And he’s so sparse and it’s so spot on, and it was really tight, as you said. It was very rarely we needed to take anything out or add anything, really.

MACLAREN: It’s nice. I mean, less is more and it’s nicer to see it than say it, and Peter shares that philosophy, which is wonderful that a writer feels that way. And they’re very compelling scripts.

I think why the show works so well is that it’s very grounded and realistic, but it has a fantastical element, if you will. Can you sort of talk about that aspect, that it is mostly very grounded?

MACLAREN: So it was really important to Peter and I, and Noomi and all of us, that this is very grounded and very realistic. Everything you’re seeing is as accurate as we could under the circumstances. Our consultant was Scott Kelly, the astronaut, and he actually came to Berlin and worked with the actors, and worked with me and worked with the props people, and really helped us figure out how to make this as realistic as possible on big levels and small levels. I said to him, “Okay, well when Paul is having his arm removed, how do we keep him from moving around?” He said, “Duct tape.” He said, “There’s no resistance. You don’t need much. We use duct tape for everything.” And we just loved the idea of using things in space that you would use differently on Earth. Keep your eye out for a few other things. But everywhere we went, we tried to make it as grounded and real as possible, so that when we do introduce the elements of the fantastical, so to speak, that hopefully you’re so invested in the reality of this you’ll go on the journey with us.

When you saw that you had to spend a day in the EVA suit, at what point did you say, “Oh my god, I can’t do this another day?” Because I’ve spoken to actors that have to wear that.

RAPACE: That suit is so heavy. It’s impossible to carry it myself. I was on a crane, and even then it was extreme, just the movements just to move my arm. I trained hard, I was kind of fit, so I was preparing, and I thought I was gonna be able to last through the days, but at the end of the days, I could barely lift my arms because that’s how heavy it is. But that’s the way it is for them. I think all the resistance and all the difficulties, and just the mental state that Jo is in, I really tried to just use it. We were all kind of just embracing and making the difficulties come to work in our favor. But it felt really magical. Those days, even though it was hard to be in the EVA suit and to do that, those scenes just felt like a dream for me.

Image via Apple TV+

This show does not work without the relationship with Alice, without the actors that play Alice [Rosie and Davina Coleman]. Were you able to bond prior to filming? How do you form a relationship with actors that are 12 that have to have these really meaningful scenes? Not to spoil anything, but there are some scenes that are coming up.

RAPACE: Rosie and Davina are just incredible. I remember the first time I met them, do you remember they came to my house in London? We sent you photos. They’re so sharp, they’re on it. Sometimes when you work with kids, you need to trick them and you kind of need to constantly surprise them to make them awake and to stay in it and to not start repeating something, but they were just proper actors. We were like partners in crime, it felt like.

MACLAREN: We had hired a child casting director to help us find them, and they had narrowed it down to three sets of twins. I was very skeptical if we were gonna find twins that both could act, because often you’ll have one that’s a good actor and one ends up being a stand-in because they don’t both have the same ability. And back when we first started casting, COVID was still around, so we were doing it through Zoom, and I first met Rosie and Davina. I was watching them on Zoom, and they were in separate rooms in their house on separate computers. I was sitting there thinking, “Oh my gosh, did we find them? This is the first people we’ve seen this. This is amazing. I think this is them.” And they were so together and so mature, and I thought, “But can they be kids?” They were cutting in between the two kids, and they didn’t know I could see this, and I caught them sticking their tongues out at each other, and I went, “Okay, that’s them.” Really, we didn’t have a lot of time together just because of the circumstances of the world.

RAPACE: But I think because of the way we worked and the way you worked with them was really to involve them. If there was a scene where I needed to raise my voice or shake them and be a bit, like, more violent in my energy, I would kind of go there before, and say like, “Okay, my voice is going to be up here. Don’t be scared,” just to kind of really make them feel that they were part of it. Like, “Is this okay?” And they were quite clear in the communication. If they didn’t understand and were like, “I wouldn’t say it this way, I would say it differently,” I think they kind of grew the confidence to feel that they could speak up.

MACLAREN: They did. Yeah, they were great collaborators. And the thing that’s amazing about them is they were interchangeable. They are both really fantastic actors. The reason you have twins is because you’re restricted with time with children, and we could time out on one and be in the middle of a scene and they’d tag team and the other one would step in, and we’d just continue on. It was amazing. I got into editing and I could not tell who was who in the editing room.

I’ve never heard this about twins on any performance. That’s crazy.

Image via Apple TV+

For soon to be fans, after they’ve seen more episodes, what do you think would surprise people to learn about the making of this show?

MACLAREN: Maybe how much of it was practical.

RAPACE: Yeah, it was kind of old-school. It was not a lot of green screen, and it was quite real.

MACLAREN: We went to the places, we built the things. We did do some volume stage work. When you see the interior of the car in Finland, or Sweden story-wise, that is on a volume stage, but otherwise, everything was shot practically.

RAPACE: It was extremely cold. It was so cold. You step out in the morning, and it was like instantly like your whole face is, like, you can’t speak basically. And I was like, “Okay, I’m supposed to act in this all day?” So we had the most extreme elements.

MACLAREN: We did. We went from the extreme heat to extreme cold, and trying to access a set that has basically a 270 view in snow, and get your crew and your actors in there without ruining your set, is an incredible accomplishment. The Finnish crew — I thought, “I don’t understand how we’re going to do this,” — they had the most incredible plan that they executed beautifully. It was one of my favorite things when I went to set in the morning, it was dark out because we shot this in February and the sun never came above the horizon…

RAPACE: It’s like two hours of daylight in Sweden that time of year.

MACLAREN: But you never see the sun. So we actually shot day for night. But when I came to set in the morning, it would be pitch black and I’d go to this parking lot and I’d get out of my car and I get on the back of a ski-doo, a snowmobile, and we’d go on these trails out onto the lake. You get out into this bright lake that was lit by the moon and the stars, and quite often the northern lights, and it was this incredible calm. You’d just hear the hum of the snowmobile, and I knew that this incredibly hard, demanding day was coming, but I really loved that peace before we started.

RAPACE: And you’d hear the weird, like, clicking sound under the ice. It’s, like, a bit scary. It’s like, “This surely cannot be strong enough for all of these vehicles.” And they were like, “Yeah, it is.”

Image via Apple TV+

I read that you used the RED KOMODO cameras paired with anamorphic lenses. How did you work with your DP on crafting which cameras you wanted to use?

MACLAREN: Well, Markus Förderer, our cinematographer for [Episodes] 1 and 2, is amazing. I mean, this guy is — and I say this with all the love in the world — he is a camera nerd in the best way. He knows cameras and lenses, and I mean, he’s just amazing. We knew we wanted to shoot it in anamorphic, but we had to convince Apple that we were gonna shoot it in anamorphic because not every show gets to shoot anamorphic. So we did a bunch of tests, and Markus is much better about talking about this, but he really used lens flares. It’s kind of a psychological trick. I mean, when you’re in space and you’re outside of the ISS, you don’t want to be aware of the camera, but you kind of want to be familiar with what you’re seeing. We, as human beings, are used to looking through a lens and you might see a flare, so we actually put in post a lot of subtle flares in there. I can’t say for sure why he chose the RED. He loves the RED camera, and it’s a fantastic camera. Part of the reason may have been all the rigs that we were using. We had steadicam, we used a Ronin, we used a thing called the chicken cam. We used the Skynamic drone, which is life-changing because it’s not just a drone, it can be a dolly, it can be a crane, it can be a steadicam, it can be whatever you need it to be — when you’re shooting in deep snow or way out in the desert, in sand, this is amazing. It was awesome.

I was actually gonna ask you about this drone because I read about it. How big is this drone? Do you remember how much it costs? Is it something crazy?

MACLAREN: So when we shot this, they had rushed to finish this in China and get it to us. We weren’t even allowed to photograph it, although I did. I snuck some photographs. Now it’s all out there, but at the time it was super, super top secret. It wasn’t that big.

RAPACE: It was like a bird, like an eagle sort of.

MACLAREN: I have no idea how much it cost but we did crush it once because it froze. The operator, his face looked like, “Oh, maybe it is expensive…” But I mean, we had a couple with us, and it was okay. It did end up not breaking. We thawed it out and it was okay.

RAPACE: Also, because of the conditions, when you shoot and all of a sudden it’s a snowstorm or the wind is changing, it’s so many elements for you guys to constantly consider and rethink, “Can we shoot this?” We’re all standing by constantly, like “Can we do a drone shot? No, we have to move in because the wind changed.”

MACLAREN: But I will clarify that this drone can operate up to, like, minus 20 or minus 30 or something. Most mechanical things would have frozen in the situation that we were in and this drone didn’t — except for that one time, but we flew it up really, maybe a little too high.

It’s interesting because I’ve spoken to some filmmakers and they love the idea of using drones. I think of Michael Bay and what he did on his last movie, and it was basically drone central. Then other filmmakers are not really using drones. How do you decide where and when you want to use something like that?

MACLAREN: Well, for me, I have to say I was a little on the not-loving drone side until I met this drone. [Laughs]

Until you started the relationship.

MACLAREN: Until I started this drone relationship. I’ve worked with a lot of different drones, but it’s really more about the drone operators a lot of the time. I mean, if you have a great drone, you need great drone operators, and I’ve worked with all different types. So on this, we had great drone operators and we had a great drone, and I’m now over on the other side. I mean, I never want to not work with these guys.

So you guys are up here and you’re in the limelight for the show, but the truth is there’s hundreds, if not so many more, people behind the scenes that helped you make this show. For each of you, who’s an unsung hero that you want to shine a light on, someone who is integral to pulling this show off that helped you with your performance?

RAPACE: I would say the stunt team on this one. They were incredible and kind of thinking on their feet and finding solutions for the floating, for like, “Oh, can we do this? Is this possible to do a shot when I’m kind of floating around this corner?” You and me, we were like, “Yeah! We can do it!” They were like [laughs], “Give us some time to figure it out.” And they just worked so hard with all the elements. And when we’re up in the snow with the helicopters, they were amazing. Martin and his whole team, like, hat off.

MACLAREN: Yeah, I would agree with you. They’re absolutely phenomenal. Our whole crew was incredible. I loved everybody on the crew, and everybody was so passionate about it and cared about it deeply. It was such an honor to work with everybody. I would say, for me, one of the many unsung heroes is Doug Larmour, who was our special effects supervisor. He just would smile and nod.

RAPACE: He was like a wizard. It was like we all looked at him like, “Doug, is it possible?” And he was like, [nods]. And we’re like, “Okay, we can do it.” It was always up to him.

MACLAREN: I’ll tell you, that shot when the van is driving up to the exterior of the Baikonur mission control and there are those camels out there, that’s taken right out of a picture of the actual Baikonur in Kazakhstan, and I thought, “Oh, that’s so interesting. One of the highest technologically advanced places sending people up into space and there’s camels around it.” And I said, “I really, really, really want these camels in the shot. They’re supposed to be two-hump camels and we can only get a one-hump camel.” But Doug Lamour, he made it a two-hump camel. [Laughs]

Apple TV+

I think that’s one of the reasons why it looks so good in the first episode is how much you did practically. The thing is, and I think you could talk about this, when you are shooting a lot practically and then you use VFX wizardry to amplify the practical shot, all of a sudden, you don’t see where the VFX are.

MACLAREN: It was a great collaboration. I mean, it really was. Markus Förderer and Doug and Martin and all of us, it really was a mix. I personally prefer going as practical as possible. I love old-school.

RAPACE: I think you really invited to that, but we were rehearsing something and the stunt people and the wire, like all the guys, were controlling the wire, so it was like, “Maybe this is not going to work.” And I was like, “Can I try? And then can we try with me and Markus with the camera and me moving, and just doing it myself?” So we were like constantly finding solutions and being kind of open and improvising, weirdly enough, in this extremely complicated setup.

MACLAREN: So true. I mean, we were learning as we went. Every day we learned new ways to execute this.

Constellation Episodes 1, 2, and 3 are available to stream on Apple TV+. Subsequent episodes will premiere weekly on Wednesdays until March 27.

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